That's One Impressive Anti-Rain Shield Vermont Seems To Have

This clump of daffodils seemed happy enough in my
 St. Albans, Vermont yard this morning, but the soil
beneath them is awfully dry, at least by April standards

As gorgeous as the weather has been here in Vermont lately, we still need the rain.  

And we aren't going to get it. 

The weather patterns have been doing some impressive twists, turns and somersaults to prevent  rain from reaching the Green Mountain State. Heck, will haboobs and sand dunes be next?

I stirred up an impressive amount of dust yesterday cleaning up gardens, something that really shouldn't happen in normally muddy April. 

The air Thursday was bone dry under wall-to-wall sunshine.  Burlington managed to tie the record high for the date of 73 degrees.

St. Johnsbury reached 72 degrees, breaking their previous high temperature record for the date of 67 degrees. More record highs could be challenged today in Vermont as sunshine and very dry air remain in place.

Very little rain is the the forecast, as there almost seems to be an anti-rain force field blocking precipitation. 

By Saturday night and Sunday, a fairly impressive band of rain will be approaching from the southwest.  It might actually get as far as the western Adirondacks and far southern Vermont and deposit a modest, but decent amount of rain there. 

But high pressure to the north with its really dry air will block this rain.  Oh, it might sprinkle, mist, get cloudy, shower briefly later Sunday, but it won't amount to anything, really for most of us. There's always a chance we could get a surprise and the rain will push further into Vermont than forecast, but don't hold your breath. 

This really has been the pattern since mid-February, where weather systems align themselves just perfectly so that almost all storms take a detour away from Vermont, the rest of northern New England and parts of southern Quebec.

An example: In Burlington, there have been only two days with rain or melted snow amounting to more than half an inch. We've had no such days since February 16. 

We've had only two days so far.  And Burlington has had only four days since that February 16 storm with more than a tenth of an inch of rain.

Forecasts aren't encouraging.  After that miss with the rain Sunday, we face more misses from storms.  Next week, temperatures will trend downward toward more seasonal levels instead of this pleasant but dry June-like stuff we're seeing now. 

A storm will stall out in the Great Lakes and die.  A series of new storms will erupt over the Atlantic Ocean, much too far to our east, then move northeastward off the Canadian Maritime provinces. This will ensure a continued mostly northwest, dry air flow over us, and keep any nice, wet storm systems well to our south.  

Extended forecasts give us a glimmer of hope with perhaps a chance of above normal precipitation in the third week of the month.  But I saw several forecasts like that for most of March, and none of them panned out. 

The U.S. Drought Monitor as of Thursday still had Vermont in either moderate drought or the abnormally dry category.  But it looks to me like we will sink into the more dangerous severe drought category very soon. 

That will have implications for crops, and wells and fire danger through the spring and summer. Unless, that is, we flip to a wetter weather pattern that lasts for months. Miracles can happen, but it may be time for many of us to start reducing our water usage to preserve what we have.